By Lydia Nigussie

Staff Writer

Look for full Fest coverage in Issue No. 11.

Brookhaven College’s seventh annual Earth Day Fest will be held 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. April 5 in the Commons Courtyard. Carrie Schweitzer, Brookhaven director of sustainability, said this year the festival, hosted by the Green Team Coalition, will be extended by an hour.

Local non-profits and other agencies and organizations that work in areas of sustainability will set up tables with information and giveaways.

“It’s a really great time for people to bring in all their old electronics and old computers,” Schweitzer said.

Brookhaven’s e-waste vendor, Erecycler, will dispose of old electronics, including monitors, televisions and computers. Students, staff and faculty can bring their hard drives for the vendor to pierce and destroy. Schweitzer said they will harvest all the minerals and usable parts to prevent electronics from causing toxic waste in the landfills.

“Sustainability is a very broad term, and it encompasses many issues,” Schweitzer said. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Schweitzer said she was exposed to environmental issues in which human rights and environmental necessities interact with government roles.

Communities face issues such as poverty, women’s rights, voting rights, justice and other overlapping problems, Schweitzer said. “Offhand, you might not think that those are issues of sustainability,” she said. “When you ask people [what issues of sustainability are], they’ll say recycling, but they are all environmental problems.”

Shelter Box, an international disaster relief organization, will return to Earth Day Fest this year. Its representatives will be educating attendees on what a family might need in case of a disaster, such as a cooking stove, food and blankets.

Other organizations, such as the City of Dallas, Air North Texas, Earth Day Texas and Sierra Club will also be present.

Earth Day is an annual event celebrating environmental protection worldwide. This year’s Earth Day is April 22.

Students can find out what local groups in Dallas are doing and write pledges to make a green contributions during Earth Day Fest.